Review: What Feeds Below by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne

October 7, 2026

Synopsis:

The darkness isn’t empty. It’s hungry.

At the edge of the City of the Void, a massive chasm extends miles into the earth, its treacherous terrain overrun with vicious monsters and carnivorous plants. For orphaned best friends Petra and Jade, guiding treasure-seeking tourists down into the Void is the only way to earn enough to pull themselves up out of the slums for good.

Petra prefers to play it safe and take jobs only in the Void’s upper levels, where the dangers are better understood, while Jade wants to risk a descent to the deepest and most mysterious Sixth Layer. Because the deeper they go, the better the payout, and the sooner their dreams can become reality. Their friendship is Petra’s whole world, and Jade’s approval means everything—so Petra agrees to do it Jade’s way.

When their job goes wrong and Jade is lost in the Void, Petra must plunge deeper than she’s ever dared to save her friend. But she doesn’t know the truth of the Void . . . or what really waits for her in its depths.

Review:

Someone found a new continent that came with a hole. A layered hole with dangerous things inside. People became interested and stayed. To make a living in the long term, they built a city around it and turned it into a tourist attraction. If something is dangerous and people are willing to risk their lives for it, that’s obviously a smart financial choice 🙂

Petra and Jade are Void divers who lead tours. Petra has a financial goal in mind that will allow her to help others, having not had the easiest life growing up, and her friend Jade is helping her achieve it. During one of their guided tours, something goes wrong, and Petra tries everything she can to find Jade.

The concept sounded very promising, and the cover was one of the things that initially grabbed my attention. The world-building was done very well, and I never doubted how dangerous the Void was. No one really knows what originally happened there, and after hundreds of years of people going missing and never returning, society adapted to life both above and below ground.
The monsters, mutations, and the increasing danger of each level came across extremely well, and some of the descriptions made me genuinely uncomfortable. A creature laying eggs inside your body to slowly eat you from the inside out, plants eating people and merging with parts of their bodies (because who doesn’t love a plant with teeth?), were just some of the things that made me put the book down until I had actually finished my meal 🙂

Overall, this felt different and weirdly entertaining. If you want something a little out of the ordinary and don’t shy away from a lot of gore and highly descriptive, uncomfortable imagery, you’ll probably have a lot of fun with this one.

🌙 Recension: What Feeds Below by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
📚 Genre: Horror, YA, Fantasy, YA
📅 Release Date: October 6, 2026
📖 Publisher: Bindery Books
📱 Read as: Kindle
📗 available in various formats
💸 I received an advance review copy, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
🗣️ Language: English
📆 Pages: 280
⭐️ 4.25/5